WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:25.800 This is really how it all started. This little package of tools by Peter Norton, 00:25.800 --> 00:31.500 and then this instant best-seller sidekick by Philippe Kahn. These are examples of utilities, 00:31.500 --> 00:35.880 those neat little programs that make life so much easier for a computer user. We're going 00:35.880 --> 01:04.200 to take a look at the newest utilities on today's edition of the Computer Chronicles. 01:04.200 --> 01:09.960 Computer Chronicles is made possible by Leading Edge, makers of IBM-compatible computer systems, 01:09.960 --> 01:14.640 including Lotus Lookalike Spreadsheet, word processing with spelling correction, communication 01:14.640 --> 01:20.640 software, and Hays-compatible 1200-Baud modem. Leading Edge, with over 1,000 service centers 01:20.640 --> 01:26.960 nationwide. Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Byte. Byte's 01:26.960 --> 01:31.360 detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages cover developments 01:31.360 --> 01:39.520 in computer technology worldwide. 01:39.520 --> 01:43.520 Welcome to the Computer Chronicles. I'm Stuart Shafae, and this is Gary Kildall. Gary, what 01:43.520 --> 01:47.600 we have running here is something called Sideways Utility, a lot of people are familiar with. 01:47.600 --> 01:51.480 What it lets you do is print out a Lotus spreadsheet horizontally rather than vertically, which 01:51.480 --> 01:55.120 of course makes a lot of sense, and it's something you couldn't do just through Lotus 1-2-3, 01:55.120 --> 01:59.320 hence utility. Some utilities like this work with application software, others work with 01:59.320 --> 02:02.960 operating systems. I was wondering, as a guy who designed an operating system, does it 02:02.960 --> 02:05.920 bother you when other guys come along and write utilities you never thought of in the 02:05.920 --> 02:06.920 first place? 02:06.920 --> 02:09.400 Not really, because when you're designing an operating system, it's really hard to tell 02:09.400 --> 02:12.480 what people are really going to want, especially when you're trying to keep the memory requirements 02:12.480 --> 02:16.200 really small. In the case of CPM, for example, one of the first utilities that came out was 02:16.200 --> 02:20.120 an undelete program, and that's to recover the programs you just deleted. And when you're 02:20.120 --> 02:23.640 designing an operating system, why would you want to undelete something you just deleted? 02:23.640 --> 02:27.480 We're going to see some of the newest utilities on today's program, from disk optimizers to 02:27.480 --> 02:32.400 memory expansion emulators to something called an intuitive processor. First of all, we're 02:32.400 --> 02:38.600 going to begin with a background look at some of the past and present uses of utilities. 02:38.600 --> 02:43.760 To most computer users, utilities are convenient accessories that perform mundane computer 02:43.760 --> 02:50.380 housekeeping chores, like copying a disk or telling the time. But as files grow and applications 02:50.380 --> 02:56.440 become more complex, utilities take on new importance. The LaserWrite shop in Palo Alto, 02:56.440 --> 03:01.720 California, provides an elaborate array of electronic publishing services, from typesetting 03:01.720 --> 03:07.600 to graphic design. LaserWrite depends on a group of specialized utilities to organize 03:07.600 --> 03:13.960 and manipulate their customers' files. A utility called TOPS makes it possible to transfer 03:13.960 --> 03:20.680 IBM text files over their AppleTalk network to a Macintosh, where the files can be reformatted 03:20.680 --> 03:27.160 using another utility. To change the size of graphics while retaining the same proportions, 03:27.160 --> 03:34.540 the LaserWrite staff uses an electronic proportion wheel utility. And to support electronic publishing's 03:34.540 --> 03:42.240 PostScript language, a template utility. Like many computer users with hard disks, people 03:42.240 --> 03:49.360 at LaserWrite face the aggravation of mislabeled or misplaced files. A utility called Locator 03:49.360 --> 03:57.040 can recover them using just a single keystroke and trace the file's directory and sub-directory. 03:57.040 --> 04:02.440 In spite of their unglamorous reputation as program accessories, utility packages have 04:02.440 --> 04:08.480 grown in popularity and functionality, at least occasionally crossing the barrier from 04:08.480 --> 04:24.600 desktop organizers to mainstream software. 04:24.600 --> 04:28.440 Joining us now in the studio are Ed Tolson, president of SoftLogic of Manchester, New 04:28.440 --> 04:32.800 Hampshire. And next to Ed is Dale Siner, one of the co-founders of Executive Systems of 04:32.800 --> 04:34.200 Sherman Oaks, California. Gary? 04:34.200 --> 04:37.640 Ed, you and Dale have made a business out of selling utilities. How big a business is 04:37.640 --> 04:38.640 it? 04:38.640 --> 04:42.840 It's a pretty big business. There's a lot of holes in the operating system for utilities 04:42.840 --> 04:44.360 such as these to fill up. 04:44.360 --> 04:47.520 Dale, how many customers do you have? 04:47.520 --> 04:49.480 We've sold over 100,000 copies of X-Tree. 04:49.480 --> 04:50.480 Really? Okay. 04:50.480 --> 04:51.480 Yeah. 04:51.480 --> 04:55.840 Good. Ed, you've got a program here that's disk optimizer and also double DOS, right? 04:55.840 --> 04:56.840 That's right. 04:56.840 --> 04:59.120 Let's start off with disk optimizer and tell us what that does. 04:59.120 --> 05:03.800 Okay. Well, disk optimizer is meant to keep your hard disk working as fast as possible. 05:03.800 --> 05:05.920 The problem that occurs is file fragmentation. 05:05.920 --> 05:11.680 Just to make sure people understand, tell us what you mean by file fragmentation. 05:11.680 --> 05:18.640 File fragmentation is the process that occurs due to the fact that DOS stores files in individual 05:18.640 --> 05:25.040 packets called clusters. On this type of system, each cluster is 2K. So if you have a 100K 05:25.040 --> 05:29.200 file program, then it can be literally in 50 different places on the disk. 05:29.200 --> 05:31.680 And what disk optimizer does is? 05:31.680 --> 05:36.960 It makes all those pieces contiguous, so therefore the drive doesn't have to move around to seek 05:36.960 --> 05:37.960 each piece. 05:37.960 --> 05:38.960 And so you can load it faster. 05:38.960 --> 05:39.960 Exactly. 05:39.960 --> 05:40.960 Okay. Show us how you do it. 05:40.960 --> 05:46.800 Okay. Well, the analyze program we use to determine what kind of shape our drive is 05:46.800 --> 05:53.920 in. And the analyze program will show us on the screen in percentage the optimization 05:53.920 --> 05:58.720 for each of the files on there. So a file that's 100% optimized means that all its pieces 05:58.720 --> 06:01.240 are contiguous side by side, fastest possible. 06:01.240 --> 06:03.080 So you're analyzing the hard disk drive here. 06:03.080 --> 06:04.080 Exactly. 06:04.080 --> 06:05.080 And what do you find out? 06:05.080 --> 06:09.200 Okay. Well, the ones that display in green are at 100% and those files are contiguous. 06:09.200 --> 06:14.520 We have a few that are shown in red here, and those files are badly fragmented. If we 06:14.520 --> 06:16.680 had some that were borderline, they would show in yellow. 06:16.680 --> 06:19.280 Now it says 0%. What does that mean next to the red file? 06:19.280 --> 06:21.960 That means that none of its clusters are contiguous. 06:21.960 --> 06:24.840 Okay. Now your program could clean this up also, right? 06:24.840 --> 06:25.840 Exactly. 06:25.840 --> 06:27.720 And how would you do that? I know we don't have time to do it, but suppose you wanted 06:27.720 --> 06:29.720 to put everything into 100% optimization. 06:29.720 --> 06:35.200 We would run the optimize program. We can tell the optimize to work on any drive, and 06:35.200 --> 06:40.760 it will go through and reorganize the information. It does it in a very safe fashion, redundantly 06:40.760 --> 06:45.320 allocating the information that's moving around. This one we worked on a floppy in five seconds. 06:45.320 --> 06:47.960 Okay. Now what about DoubleDOS? Can you show us that? 06:47.960 --> 06:52.920 Sure. DoubleDOS is a two-task multitasking system providing classic foreground and background 06:52.920 --> 06:59.920 operation. And basically, we can start up virtually any program. 06:59.920 --> 07:01.920 Okay. So you're going to run Lotus. 07:01.920 --> 07:05.480 Exactly. And we can be working with it, and if we decide that we need to do something 07:05.480 --> 07:08.360 else, like if we were going to print out this spreadsheet or something, we could just go 07:08.360 --> 07:10.400 on back to work with something else. 07:10.400 --> 07:17.800 Okay. So we can set up the MicroProse directory here. 07:17.800 --> 07:18.800 Right. 07:18.800 --> 07:19.800 That's the hard part. 07:19.800 --> 07:20.800 Okay. 07:20.800 --> 07:21.800 And start up our WordStar. 07:21.800 --> 07:24.600 Right. So we could have WordStar running in here while we're printing out something out 07:24.600 --> 07:25.600 of Lotus at the same time. 07:25.600 --> 07:26.600 Exactly. 07:26.600 --> 07:27.600 And go up and back? 07:27.600 --> 07:29.400 That's right. Instantly back and forth between the two. 07:29.400 --> 07:32.400 Do you have any problem with file conflicts at all? 07:32.400 --> 07:37.600 No. Basically, as long as you don't try to edit the same file at the same time, you can't 07:37.600 --> 07:38.600 get hurt. 07:38.600 --> 07:41.880 Yeah. Let's go over to you, and you've got a couple of utilities, too. Xtree and then 07:41.880 --> 07:45.600 something new called HUT. I want to ask you to show us what Xtree does first. You can 07:45.600 --> 07:47.800 just sort of take over the AT there. 07:47.800 --> 07:53.520 Okay. Well, Xtree is a file and directory management program. We believe utilities should 07:53.520 --> 07:59.360 do two things, make the computer easier to use and save time. Xtree is a big time saver 07:59.360 --> 08:03.520 because it shows you clearly what your directory structure looks like, and it makes it very 08:03.520 --> 08:08.120 easy to move files between directories, copy, delete, rename files in groups or individually. 08:08.120 --> 08:10.760 So the usual mess of not knowing where all the stuff is in your hard disk. 08:10.760 --> 08:11.760 Right. 08:11.760 --> 08:12.760 Okay. So what is it showing us? 08:12.760 --> 08:16.400 So here it shows you the directories and subdirectories in the top window. In the bottom window, there 08:16.400 --> 08:20.960 are the files within that subdirectory. I could blow that up like that. And I can also 08:20.960 --> 08:25.120 show all the files in all directories. Regardless of directory, these are all the files. 08:25.120 --> 08:27.160 And you can sort those files in a variety of ways? 08:27.160 --> 08:29.360 Alphabetically, by extension, by size, or by date and time. 08:29.360 --> 08:31.680 How long have you been selling Xtree? 08:31.680 --> 08:33.120 About 18 months. 08:33.120 --> 08:35.800 Okay. What's the cost of a product like that? 08:35.800 --> 08:36.800 $49.95. 08:36.800 --> 08:40.920 Okay. Now, the new thing you have is HUT, another utility. And if I can ask you to get 08:40.920 --> 08:41.920 HUT up. 08:41.920 --> 08:42.920 Okay. 08:42.920 --> 08:48.360 And show us what that does. 08:48.360 --> 08:54.080 HUT is a... That's what I thought. We have a problem that doubled us. It didn't give 08:54.080 --> 08:57.280 me enough memory to run HUT in this section. 08:57.280 --> 08:59.760 Can you disable it? 08:59.760 --> 09:05.280 HUT is an intelligent menuing system. First of all, for the novice user, it automatically 09:05.280 --> 09:09.680 builds menus for you. You don't have to do anything. It'll build menus on the applications 09:09.680 --> 09:13.680 that you already have on your system. For the more experienced user, he can go in and 09:13.680 --> 09:19.160 tailor those menus to whatever his application needs are. It's a complete menu editor to 09:19.160 --> 09:24.280 add items and move the menus around. And it also has some pop-up utilities with it. 09:24.280 --> 09:29.360 Uh-huh. Will we be able to get this up here, you think, Ed? Or is it too complicated? 09:29.360 --> 09:32.360 No. We're all set. 09:32.360 --> 09:34.360 How are we doing? 09:34.360 --> 09:37.360 So you're getting rid of double DOS. And now let's see if we can get... 09:37.360 --> 09:39.880 I'm going to hang two of you. 09:39.880 --> 09:40.880 Really? 09:40.880 --> 09:41.880 Great example. 09:41.880 --> 09:42.880 Okay. There we go. 09:42.880 --> 09:43.880 Okay. 09:43.880 --> 09:44.880 We did it. 09:44.880 --> 09:45.880 Okay. 09:45.880 --> 09:51.960 Here's HUT. And a few moments ago, I built this menu system automatically based on the 09:51.960 --> 09:56.360 applications you have on this hard disk. And you have communications, database, et cetera, 09:56.360 --> 10:01.000 spreadsheet, utilities, word processing. And you can go to any one of these. In word processing, 10:01.000 --> 10:06.040 you have four word processors on this system. Easy, the HUT1 word, which comes with HUT, 10:06.040 --> 10:07.040 WordStar and WordPerfect. 10:07.040 --> 10:09.840 And by running HUT, it automatically built all these applications for us. 10:09.840 --> 10:10.840 Automatically. 10:10.840 --> 10:12.960 Gentlemen, we're out of time right now. Thank you very much. In just a minute, we're going 10:12.960 --> 10:17.120 to take a look at a new package of utilities for D-based users. We'll see a utility that 10:17.120 --> 10:20.880 lets you pretend that you have an extended memory board. Now, there's a guy who writes 10:20.880 --> 10:24.760 very good utilities, and he gives them away. We're going to find out more about him from 10:24.760 --> 10:27.880 Wendy Woods. 10:27.880 --> 10:34.000 Vernon Berg is a prolific producer of utilities for the IBM PC and compatibles. He's got some 10:34.000 --> 10:40.560 50 programs to his credit, programs that file, sort, archive, and even aid in programming 10:40.560 --> 10:44.600 itself. He's been writing them since 1983. 10:44.600 --> 10:52.160 When you need something done, a utility program to convert a file or to print it out or whatever 10:52.160 --> 10:58.680 you want done with, you usually can't find them. Commercial programs don't do those kind 10:58.680 --> 11:04.520 of things. They're pretty much word processors, database programs, something like that. So 11:04.520 --> 11:11.000 you end up writing them, either starting out with basic or what I like to write in now 11:11.000 --> 11:15.320 is Assembler because it produces smaller, faster programs. 11:15.320 --> 11:21.360 Vernon is best known for List, a utility which allows you to view and search text files from 11:21.360 --> 11:26.920 DOS level without the hassle of having to load a word processing program. Like all of 11:26.920 --> 11:32.160 his software, List is free. People need only to write him or call his electronic bulletin 11:32.160 --> 11:37.800 board which operates 24 hours a day from his home in Daly City, California. They're free 11:37.800 --> 11:42.320 because for Vernon Berg, writing utilities is a labor of love. 11:42.320 --> 11:49.520 One of the reasons I give the programs out is just so I can be out there participating. 11:49.520 --> 12:04.200 For the Computer Chronicles, I'm Wendy Woods. 12:04.200 --> 12:08.480 Joining us now in the studio is Karen Lund, President of Teleware, Incorporated of Pittsburgh, 12:08.480 --> 12:12.280 New York. And sitting next to Karen is Robert Hoffman, who's Development Manager for Ashton 12:12.280 --> 12:15.000 Tate's Publishing Group based in Torrance, California. Gary? 12:15.000 --> 12:19.520 Stuart, you know, back in the late 70s, the heart of this machine, the 886 processor, 12:19.520 --> 12:24.000 was designed with about 640K of main memory. At that time, we figured we could rule the 12:24.000 --> 12:28.040 world with that much memory. But it seems to be a problem now. What is the 640 kilobyte 12:28.040 --> 12:29.600 restriction doing to this? 12:29.600 --> 12:36.280 It makes it extremely difficult for developers to provide adequate software for applications 12:36.280 --> 12:41.160 programs these days. People are always saying, we want more. We want a lot more. We want 12:41.160 --> 12:45.640 to go beyond the 640K limit. And there are now two main standards that are used to do 12:45.640 --> 12:53.120 this. One is the LIM spec, which we have used in developing above disk to give you some 12:53.120 --> 12:55.880 expanded memory capability. 12:55.880 --> 12:58.520 One of the problems, of course, is the monster spreadsheet, which we're going to talk about 12:58.520 --> 13:01.480 here, which takes more than that. And you have, what's the size of the spreadsheet you 13:01.480 --> 13:02.480 have in there right now? 13:02.480 --> 13:08.560 We have a spreadsheet in here with 20,000 cells in it now. It will not load in 640K. 13:08.560 --> 13:16.720 We brought it up just to show you we've got some expanded memory out there that it is 13:16.720 --> 13:22.520 using. Not a lot that you can see from above disk, but it does provide you with expanded 13:22.520 --> 13:23.520 memory in software. 13:23.520 --> 13:26.720 Okay, well, let's back up a minute. Now, the normal solution before you get to above disk 13:26.720 --> 13:27.800 of that problem was what? 13:27.800 --> 13:33.120 Is to use a board. You go out, you buy a RAM board, an EMS board with some expensive memory 13:33.120 --> 13:36.960 on it, plug it into your machine, and then you can run your big spreadsheets. 13:36.960 --> 13:39.520 And what would the cost of buying that board be, for example? 13:39.520 --> 13:43.040 Depending on what you get and how much memory you get on it, it can go up into the $600 13:43.040 --> 13:44.040 range. 13:44.040 --> 13:47.640 Okay, and now tell us again what above disk does to solve the problem another way. 13:47.640 --> 13:55.800 Okay, above disk emulates, above disk implements the EMS standard in software. It will take 13:55.800 --> 14:01.680 any kind of a disk file or AT extended memory, use that as expanded memory, totally transparent 14:01.680 --> 14:04.000 to you, the user, and to your application. 14:04.000 --> 14:07.680 Now, Karen, how does that affect performance? When you were using, let's say, using a disk 14:07.680 --> 14:11.000 file instead of extended memory, how does it affect performance? 14:11.000 --> 14:17.040 A disk file will be, I think our benchmarks show that it runs about 60% as fast as an 14:17.040 --> 14:23.360 EMS board. Extended memory will run just as fast as an EMS board. It will, I will also 14:23.360 --> 14:27.000 point out, it will run off floppies for those machines that don't have access to a hard 14:27.000 --> 14:30.920 disk. It's obviously much slower off floppies, but it's there. It's there and it does support 14:30.920 --> 14:31.920 the low-end user. 14:31.920 --> 14:36.360 Karen, I want to ask you if you can pull your disk out and load Robert's disk. And Robert, 14:36.360 --> 14:39.200 if you can take over the keyboard for a minute. Now, you've just come out, Ashton Tate has 14:39.200 --> 14:43.800 just come out with this whole package of utilities for D-Base users. Tell me what's in that package. 14:43.800 --> 14:48.000 This is a group of utilities that we've put together to help the D-Base programmer both 14:48.000 --> 14:53.400 with his programming and his day-to-day computer activities. It's broken up into three groups. 14:53.400 --> 14:57.600 The first is a series of assembly language modules, which are callable and loadable from 14:57.600 --> 15:04.480 D-Base. The second group has a database recovery program for damaged, for corrupted files, 15:04.480 --> 15:09.960 from power failures and so on. There's a debugging, structuring, cross-reference, symbol table 15:09.960 --> 15:14.200 type program. And then a series of DOS level maintenance utilities. 15:14.200 --> 15:16.040 Can we take a look at them? 15:16.040 --> 15:23.560 Yeah, here's a bit of fluff that just shows off a few of the modules for screen control. 15:23.560 --> 15:28.240 There's also one that gives you direct access in the serial port, which could be very useful 15:28.240 --> 15:34.680 for writing an auto dialer from D-Base. This one also saves screens if you like. 15:34.680 --> 15:40.560 Okay, how about D-Repair? That's the one that I might need it. 15:40.560 --> 15:48.940 Here's a database that we offer up for sacrifice that we're going to zap inadvertently, which 15:48.940 --> 15:54.800 in D-Base just takes care of everything. This could also help if someone trips over the 15:54.800 --> 15:55.800 power cord. 15:55.800 --> 16:03.360 So the situation is inadvertently lost a whole file here. Okay. What are you going to do? 16:03.360 --> 16:13.040 So what we're going to do is bring up the recovery program, which will first verify 16:13.040 --> 16:20.360 that the header is correct and if it can find the valid header and allow you to fix it. 16:20.360 --> 16:25.760 Then it will go ahead and search all of the clusters on the disk for valid records, pausing 16:25.760 --> 16:32.000 whenever it has a question and letting you know that you need to run through and fill 16:32.000 --> 16:33.000 it all out. 16:33.000 --> 16:34.320 What does the utility package sell for? 16:34.320 --> 16:35.320 It's $89.95. 16:35.320 --> 16:38.600 And that sounds like a pretty good price if you corrupt your disk once. 16:38.600 --> 16:39.600 That's for sure. 16:39.600 --> 16:41.320 One save is worth it. 16:41.320 --> 16:43.120 Karen, Robert, thank you very much. 16:43.120 --> 16:46.600 Now in just a minute we're going to take a look at intuitive processing and clairvoyance 16:46.600 --> 16:49.880 right on your PC. So stay with us. 16:49.880 --> 17:06.760 With us now in the studio is Jay Eisenlor, Vice President of AERIS Incorporated of Portland, 17:06.760 --> 17:11.360 Oregon. Sitting next to Jay is Ezra Shapiro, Consulting Editor with Byte Magazine. And 17:11.360 --> 17:14.240 weighing down the table at the end is our regular commentator, George Morrow. 17:14.240 --> 17:18.800 Stuart, as you know, the IBM PC DOS interface is a pretty old one. It came from CPM and 17:18.800 --> 17:22.640 the CPM interface came from the old time-sharing system, so it's got to be about 20 years old 17:22.640 --> 17:25.760 or something like that. I'd say categorically that no one really likes it. 17:25.760 --> 17:27.880 It hasn't gotten any better in 20 years. 17:27.880 --> 17:31.520 And the approach has been recently to replace the whole DOS interface with things like the 17:31.520 --> 17:35.360 Digital Research Gem product or Microsoft Windows or whatever. But Jay's product really 17:35.360 --> 17:39.400 tries to enhance the DOS interface. Can you show us what that's about? 17:39.400 --> 17:45.880 Exactly, Gary. What we're doing here is we're actually enhancing DOS with an intuitive processing 17:45.880 --> 17:51.020 technology that we call AERISA. And what it does is character by character or element 17:51.020 --> 17:57.520 by element, it actually syntax checks the DOS command line. And to show you very quickly 17:57.520 --> 18:04.280 on what it does, as I begin to type, I'll just type random characters initially, it 18:04.280 --> 18:09.200 just shows the highlighted areas that it doesn't understand. I'm currently in the sub-directory 18:09.200 --> 18:15.080 now and as I type in an N, it automatically completes it because there are simultaneous 18:15.080 --> 18:16.840 dictionaries that are running on the system. 18:16.840 --> 18:19.320 Is that the clairvoyance element you're talking about? 18:19.320 --> 18:23.920 That's the clairvoyance element. And it's actually not true clairvoyance. What it's 18:23.920 --> 18:31.200 doing is it knows that there's no other file in the system called now. And what I can do 18:31.200 --> 18:40.000 in this system is I can actually invoke, actually go out and append a memo that I call memo. 18:40.000 --> 18:44.480 And as you can see, a choices window will pop up immediately. And without moving from 18:44.480 --> 18:49.640 the command line, I can move up and down this window and see that it isn't in the directory 18:49.640 --> 18:50.640 that I'm currently in. 18:50.640 --> 18:54.120 The problem is as soon as it saw the E, the second character, it knew there was a problem. 18:54.120 --> 18:55.120 That's exactly right. 18:55.120 --> 18:58.140 It reversed, highlighted it, and then showed you the possible choices you really had beginning 18:58.140 --> 18:59.140 with an M. 18:59.140 --> 19:01.720 That's exactly right. And all these features are usable. 19:01.720 --> 19:03.520 How do you solve the problem then? 19:03.520 --> 19:08.800 I invoke another command called locate, and it actually goes out on the system and brings 19:08.800 --> 19:14.500 back all the path names that start with M-E. And then what I can do is actually choose 19:14.500 --> 19:19.000 the one that I want and bring it back down to the control line and at that point just 19:19.000 --> 19:20.000 execute the program. 19:20.000 --> 19:24.640 Okay. So what are the couple of problems then that Dayton solves? 19:24.640 --> 19:31.400 Well, Dayton specifically solves the problem of the command line itself. Rather than hitting 19:31.400 --> 19:37.960 a return and getting back a bad command or user file name, you're guaranteed by the time 19:37.960 --> 19:41.520 you get to the end of the line that you're going to have a good command line. 19:41.520 --> 19:44.840 You just can't get away with a mistake, and it will show you what the mistake is. 19:44.840 --> 19:45.840 That's exactly right. 19:45.840 --> 19:49.120 This product is a program that loads into memory just stays there. 19:49.120 --> 19:54.560 It's a memory resident program, and it actually builds a dictionary of all the users' files 19:54.560 --> 19:55.560 and path names. 19:55.560 --> 19:56.840 Okay. But what does it sell for? 19:56.840 --> 19:59.040 It sells for $75, this price. 19:59.040 --> 20:03.200 When you say you're intuitive processing technology, what's it really doing there? 20:03.200 --> 20:08.580 What it's doing is it's checking on an 8088 machine at 500 microseconds. It's actually 20:08.580 --> 20:13.460 doing a compare against the dictionary, as I mentioned before, in this case, five dictionaries. 20:13.460 --> 20:16.840 But it can actually, the technology itself can actually handle up to a megabyte. 20:16.840 --> 20:19.080 Ezra, what do you think of this product? 20:19.080 --> 20:23.160 Well, it looks like it would make a pretty good safety net for somebody who's unfamiliar 20:23.160 --> 20:29.080 with DOS or who's a rotten typist like I am. The question I have, though, is that if you're 20:29.080 --> 20:32.800 a good typist and you're up to speed on what you're doing in DOS, this thing might get 20:32.800 --> 20:34.680 in your way. 20:34.680 --> 20:35.680 In what way? 20:35.680 --> 20:39.920 Well, you want to type something other than the choices it wants to offer you, you have 20:39.920 --> 20:44.360 a screen of choices coming up. I haven't really seen the product before today, so I don't 20:44.360 --> 20:49.520 know whether it's configurable. But my snap impression looks like that it might be a nuisance 20:49.520 --> 20:51.960 to somebody who's real adept at doing what he's supposed to do. 20:51.960 --> 20:52.960 How do you answer that, Jay? 20:52.960 --> 20:59.920 Well, it is configurable. It's totally configurable. And the whole idea of intuitive processing 20:59.920 --> 21:06.160 is to be able to customize according to the way you type. And in this case, I have spell 21:06.160 --> 21:11.680 checking on, I have auto choices on, I have clear avoidance on, and I have autosave dictionaries 21:11.680 --> 21:16.800 on. We can turn all those on and off, just as we can in our word processing product as 21:16.800 --> 21:21.560 well. And the whole idea of this technology is to be able to customize it according to 21:21.560 --> 21:23.040 the way you type. 21:23.040 --> 21:26.920 Ezra, in general, talking about utilities, we were talking at the very beginning of the 21:26.920 --> 21:30.720 program with Gary. Are utilities around really because programmers don't do the right job 21:30.720 --> 21:31.720 in the first place? 21:31.720 --> 21:38.000 Yeah. The question from a user perspective is whether you want to drive a car or whether 21:38.000 --> 21:43.600 you want to be an auto mechanic. And a lot of these things are solutions to problems 21:43.600 --> 21:48.880 that are really a pain to solve when you're using a machine. I don't want to have to learn 21:48.880 --> 21:53.600 how to run a program to back up my hard disk. I just want to push a button and know that 21:53.600 --> 21:54.600 my data is safe. 21:54.600 --> 21:56.600 George, you were nodding your head no. 21:56.600 --> 22:00.200 I have to disagree because in the early days of the automobile, if you wanted to drive 22:00.200 --> 22:04.040 one, you had to be a mechanic. You had to be able to change tires and you had to be 22:04.040 --> 22:07.320 able to adjust your spark plugs. And we were at the same point with computers. And that's 22:07.320 --> 22:08.320 what this... 22:08.320 --> 22:09.320 But I mean, ideally, you shouldn't have to be a mechanic. 22:09.320 --> 22:13.520 Well, I'm sure. But the ideal world and the real world are usually two different things. 22:13.520 --> 22:20.200 The point is, today, computers are at the same stage as Model Ts. And we still... And 22:20.200 --> 22:24.400 the people that help us with changing tires, some guy that came out with something that 22:24.400 --> 22:27.760 helped you change your tire could have made some money in those days. And the utility 22:27.760 --> 22:33.040 programs are exactly like that. I corrupted data in my file. And if I hadn't had something 22:33.040 --> 22:35.800 like the Norton Utilities, I would be programming for weeks. 22:35.800 --> 22:37.360 Did he convince you, Ezra? 22:37.360 --> 22:42.280 Oh, he convinced... Yeah, I'm saying roughly the same thing. What disturbs me is that we 22:42.280 --> 22:50.960 do have to do a lot of, oh, checking and protecting ourselves in a way that is not particularly 22:50.960 --> 22:55.800 a lot of fun. And yeah, I'd love to see in the next generation, computers smart enough 22:55.800 --> 22:58.600 to handle a lot of the things that utilities handle by themselves. 22:58.600 --> 23:00.600 We're almost out of time, Joe, to give you 10 seconds. 23:00.600 --> 23:05.800 Well, Gary and I date back a ways. And we can see today, I'm sure both of us agree that 23:05.800 --> 23:08.840 things are a lot better than they used to be. And probably in another 10 years, they're 23:08.840 --> 23:12.000 going to be a lot better than they are today. And we'll get closer to Ezra's world. 23:12.000 --> 23:14.720 And we've certainly seen some pretty interesting utilities today, actually. Gentlemen, thank 23:14.720 --> 23:29.240 you very much. We'll be back in just a minute with this week's computer news. 23:29.240 --> 23:33.320 In the Random Access file this week, IBM and Intel have signed a deal to jointly develop 23:33.320 --> 23:39.320 new customized computer chips based on a new design technology called ASIC, application-specific 23:39.320 --> 23:43.480 integrated circuitry. The upshot of the deal is that IBM may now move away from its own 23:43.480 --> 23:48.720 PC standard in an effort to combat the clones. The IBM-Intel deal could establish a new standard 23:48.720 --> 23:53.400 around the custom chips and so make it much more difficult for clone makers to copy IBM. 23:53.400 --> 23:58.060 The other major effect of a new standard for the next generation of IBM PCs would be confusion 23:58.060 --> 24:02.500 in the software marketplace. IBM also in the news this week with a prediction 24:02.500 --> 24:06.960 of lower profits for 1986. If that happens, this would be the first time since the Depression 24:06.960 --> 24:10.920 that IBM had declining profits for two consecutive years. 24:10.920 --> 24:14.520 The standard for speed computing has always been the Cray supercomputer, but this week 24:14.520 --> 24:21.080 ETA Systems of Minnesota announced a new supercomputer, the ETA10, that can perform 10 billion arithmetic 24:21.080 --> 24:26.560 operations per second. That makes it 40 times faster than the Cray 2. The first ETA10 will 24:26.560 --> 24:30.400 be installed at Florida State University in a few months. 24:30.400 --> 24:35.340 Lotus has formally introduced its much-touted HAL interface for 123. HAL lets you communicate 24:35.340 --> 24:39.480 with Lotus in plain English so that you can now command Lotus to graph column 3 as a pie 24:39.480 --> 24:48.080 chart rather than hitting GTP AB 6.B9 return XA 6.9 return V. HAL also logs all Lotus commands 24:48.080 --> 24:52.280 so that you can review what you did and it provides several other Lotus utilities. 24:52.280 --> 24:55.520 Time for this week's software review with Paul Schindler. 24:55.520 --> 25:02.240 Sure, I can fix my PC myself, but every time I take the skin off that sucker it makes me 25:02.240 --> 25:06.360 nervous. If you're like me and you're not too pleased about having to guess what you're 25:06.360 --> 25:12.720 doing inside of an IBM personal computer, check out ServTech. ServTech is unprotected, 25:12.720 --> 25:17.640 which is nice. It starts with a firm but amusing anti-piracy notice, which I think reflects 25:17.640 --> 25:23.240 the kind of spirit that's most likely to reduce piracy. ServTech does several things. New 25:23.240 --> 25:28.320 PC owners fill out a menu of options describing their system. ServTech shows you the switch 25:28.320 --> 25:33.960 settings and the locations of the switches for such a configuration. It offers disassembly 25:33.960 --> 25:39.560 advice. ServTech shows you where the screws are located and shows you how to take apart 25:39.560 --> 25:46.640 an IBM PC. Perhaps ServTech's most useful feature is a diagnostic error interpreter. 25:46.640 --> 25:50.800 You learn not only what error messages mean, but you get a step-by-step troubleshooting 25:50.800 --> 25:57.800 procedure for diagnosis and repair. If a chip is suspect, it blinks on a map of the computer. 25:57.800 --> 26:04.680 ServTech costs $50 and comes from Rylos Technologies in Burke, Virginia. For the Computer Chronicles, 26:04.680 --> 26:06.640 I'm Paul Schindler. 26:06.640 --> 26:10.920 The Software Publishers Association has awarded its Platinum discs to the two best-selling 26:10.920 --> 26:16.320 programs, both of which have sold over 250,000 copies. And the winners were Print Shop from 26:16.320 --> 26:21.280 Broderbund and Newsroom from Springboard. Gold discs were also awarded to programs that 26:21.280 --> 26:26.760 sold over 100,000 copies. The two top software publishers were Electronic Arts with six winners 26:26.760 --> 26:31.920 and Epics with three winners. Microsoft says it will take copy protection off Excel and 26:31.920 --> 26:36.160 other Macintosh software packages. Earlier this year, Microsoft dropped copy protection 26:36.160 --> 26:41.640 on MS-DOS software. Microsoft said with increasing use of hard disks on Macs, copy protection 26:41.640 --> 26:44.960 is no longer in the interest of its customers. 26:44.960 --> 26:48.640 Over the summer, the major hacker hunt was for Captain Midnight. Now the most wanted 26:48.640 --> 26:53.600 hacker is a man called Pink Floyd, a suspected graduate student who has broken into dozens 26:53.600 --> 26:58.480 of campus computer systems from Stanford to MIT. His specialty seems to be breaking into 26:58.480 --> 27:03.440 Unix systems, and some investigators suspect he's trying to show how vulnerable Unix systems 27:03.440 --> 27:08.000 are to security breaks. Pink Floyd has even called system operators to tell them he's 27:08.000 --> 27:12.360 about to break into their system, but so far Pink Floyd is on the loose. 27:12.360 --> 27:15.840 Finally, if you're still trying to figure out what to do with your home computer, there's 27:15.840 --> 27:20.880 a new book out by Dan Gutman that has a collection of 400 offbeat applications that you've probably 27:20.880 --> 27:25.440 never thought of. Among the little-known software programs is one written by a Lebanese man 27:25.440 --> 27:29.840 for Moslem businessmen who travel a lot. The program automatically calculates the times 27:29.840 --> 27:34.000 of day for prayer and the direction of Mecca from any location in the world. 27:34.000 --> 27:36.000 That's it for this week's Chronicles. We'll see you next time. 27:36.000 --> 27:43.640 The Computer Chronicles is made possible by Leading Edge, makers of IBM-compatible computer 27:43.640 --> 27:48.680 systems including Lotus Lookalike Spreadsheet, word processing with spelling correction, 27:48.680 --> 27:54.840 communication software, and Hays-compatible 1200-baud modem. Leading Edge, with over 1,000 27:54.840 --> 27:59.920 service centers nationwide. Additional funding is provided by McGraw-Hill, 27:59.920 --> 28:05.080 publishers of Byte. Byte's detailed technical articles on new hardware, software, and languages 28:05.080 --> 28:25.080 cover developments in computer technology worldwide. 28:35.080 --> 28:42.080 Thanks for watching.